An analyst is building a report to compare the total revenue generated from users on mobile devices vs. users on desktop computers. How are Device Category and Total Revenue functioning in this report?
Correct Answer
Device Category is the dimension, and Total Revenue is the metric.
Why is this the correct answer?
Device Category is the dimension, and Total Revenue is the metric. Dimensions are descriptive attributes that form the rows of a report — device category, country, source, page path — while metrics are the quantitative measurements that fill the columns, such as users, sessions, event count and revenue. Here the analyst wants revenue broken down by device type, so device category supplies the rows (mobile, desktop, tablet) and total revenue supplies the number against each. Every report in Analytics is built from this pairing, which is why the distinction comes up so often in the exam. It also has a practical consequence: you can only group by dimensions and only measure metrics, so a question like 'which device earns most' always needs one of each.
Why are the other options wrong?
Both Device Category and Total Revenue are metrics.
Device Category is not a quantity. It is a descriptive attribute used to break the numbers down.
Device Category is the metric, and Total Revenue is the dimension.
This reverses the roles. Revenue is a measured quantity and device category describes the rows.
Both Device Category and Total Revenue are dimensions.
Total Revenue is measured, not descriptive, so the two cannot both be dimensions.
Real-world example
An analyst builds a report with device category as the dimension and total revenue and sessions as metrics. Mobile produces 68% of sessions but only 41% of revenue, which points the team straight at the mobile checkout experience.
Topics in this question
About the Google Analytics Certification (GA4)
The Google Analytics Certification tests your understanding of GA4: how data is collected through events, how accounts, properties and data streams fit together, and how to use standard reports, explorations and audiences to answer business questions.
Exam guide and all 238 Google Analytics (GA4) questions →Related Google Analytics (GA4) questions
- 1To understand how many users are coming from various devices, like computers or mobile phones, you run a report that shows this data, per device, over the past 30 days. In this report, which of these is considered a “metric” in Google Analytics?
- 2You create a report to show the types of devices users have been coming from over the past 30 days — whether they were on desktops or mobile phones, for example. In this report, what is device type?
- 3You create a report to show the types of devices users have been coming from over the past 30 days — whether they were on computers or mobile phones, for example. In this report, which of these is a “metric” in Google Analytics?
- 4You generate a report to show how many users are coming from various device types, like computers and mobile phones, over the past 30 days. In this report, which of these is a “metric” in Google Analytics?
- 5To understand how many users are coming from various devices, like desktops or mobile phones, you run a report that shows this data, per device, over the past 30 days. In this report, what is device type?
- 6A business owner wants to see the total number of times an item was added to the shopping cart on their website. In a Google Analytics Report, which of the following represents the numerical count of these actions?Explained